Pump Cottage And Pump House

PUMP COTTAGE (formerly Ivy House/Ivy Cottage) and The PUMP HOUSE, The High Street

Ivy House (or Ivy Cottage) was probably built in the second half in the 1840s as a detached house in the High Street on ground acquired in 1822 from Mrs Harbroe by Thomas Baily for his son, Farmer Baily (1799-1828). In 1845, his son, Thomas Farmer Baily (1824-1876) came of age and inherited Hall Place and lands attached to the estate, and it would have been from around this time that Ivy House would have been built (one of the earliest that Thomas Farmer Baily built). It bears the Baily crest of a Goat’s Head with the family motto “vestigia nulla restrorsum” (no looking back). It consisted of a central front door and porch, had stairs directly ahead with a door to a small dining room on the left, behind which was the kitchen. The door to the right opened on to a sitting room running the length of the house. Upstairs there were four bedrooms the two larger ones in the front.

It is not possible to trace the families that lived there between 1845 and 1881, mainly because the censuses did not give house names but, as an estate owned house, no architectural changes would have been made. It probably did not (?) have its own well because the main village pump was only three or four yards from the front door.

It must have had use of a long garden and at some stage during the century a workshop and sawpit was put at the bottom end. By the 1891 census, Harry Faircloth, aged 34, known in the village as “Potty Faircloth” had moved into the house with his wife and their ten children – and was using the workshop at the bottom of the garden for the family trade of wheelwright/undertaker and carpenter. (see separate entry under Wheelwright’s Cottage).

In due course, Ray Faircloth, one of Harry’s sons, succeeded his father and took over Ivy Cottage and the workshops at the bottom of the garden. One villager vaguely remembers that at one stage he had a small farrier’s business there which rivalled the main Forge on the Green. Others are less sure. However, it seems likely that as the wheelwright’s business (also done originally at the Forge) diminished, Ray Faircloth’s work was mainly as a carpenter.

The names of the tenant or tenants between the 1930s and 1967 are not completely clear. However, at some stage, the Hall Place Estate put in a bathroom with a WC into the fourth (back) bedroom. In January 1967 the Allison family (Jonathan and Margaret) bought the cottage from the Hall Place Estate and were told that it had previously been lived in by one of the Estate carpenters – so it could well have been the elderly Ray Faircloth.

The Allisons decided that, as there was at least one other Ivy Cottage in the village, they would change the name to Pump Cottage. In due course they added a single storey brick garage on the east of the cottage and removed the chimney in the dining room. They lived in the cottage, bringing up their family there, until 1972 when they sold it to Mr & Mrs Bugh. Mr Bugh died and his widow, Gwen, married a Mr Fitzwalter, continuing to live there. In 2003 Mrs Fitzwalter sold the cottage to James MacDonald, his wife and two daughters. Mr MacDonald was a builder and, demolishing the garage, they build a two storey extension on the east of the house and converted the attic into a living space. This meant that the cottage now had … bedrooms.

In 2006, the cottage was sold to Mrs Jenny McDowall.

(Information from Margaret Allison and Lawrence Biddle ps. 129-30. See link for references to Baily family tree: copy to be found on our website and in our archives)

THE PUMP HOUSE

The ornate pump house was built at the same time as Ivy House and probably originally had a well. However when water was being laid on for parts of the village by Samuel Morley in the 1870s and the main pump/well engines installed in Kiln Lane, a supply was laid on direct to the Pump House. This was disconnected as mains water came to the village and during the Second World War the pump was taken away for the war effort and the original trough disappeared. Both were restored by the Historical Society in 2000 to celebrate the Millennium.

In due course, probably in the early 1920s, Ray Faircloth took over the cottage and the business from his father which gradually decreased its wheel-making and increased its role as the main village undertaker (including making the coffins) and as a general carpenter.